To keep myself updated and involved with K8S, I will be exploring K8S beyond the certification topics and create challenges here on my findings. These challenges are good-to-know and might be overkill for CKA/CKAD based certifications.

I just mentioned few tips and nothing else for CKA,CKAD certifications as the internet is flooded with many different blogs, repos, videos, training, exercises to prepare for all 3 Kubernetes certifications.

If you are looking for CKS resources, scroll to the bottom of this page.

Note - Please feel free to make a pull request if there's something wrong, should be added, or updated.

1. CKA and CKAD - Beyond Certification Challeneges
2. CKA and CKAD Exam Tips
   • Using aliases
   • VIM editor changes
   • Bookmarks
3. CKS Resources

• Challenge 1 - Encrypting Secret Data at Rest
• Challenge 2 - Expanding PVC Storage Size
• Challenge 3 - Startup Probe
• Challenge 4 - Check ServiceAccount Permissions

Kubectl aliases

alias k=kubectl
alias kn='k config set-context --current --namespace '
alias kd='k -o yaml --dry-run=client'
alias kall='k get all -o wide --show-labels'
alias kc='k config get-contexts'

In the exam, every question has a context given, we need to switch over to that context. Some questions are expected to work on specific namespaces. Sometimes we tend to forget adding -n argument to create resources in a specific namespace.

These aliases will help in quickly changing the namespace and also checking the current context before answering/debugging the questions.

• Example -
  • Create a Deployment name nginx-frontend
  • Expose it using a Service named nginx-svc
  • Write the output of all Service Endpoints to /opt/INC002/endpoints.txt
  • Everything needs to be done in rs67 namespace.

Without aliases

k create deploy nginx-frontend --image nginx -n rs67
k expose deploy nginx-frontend --name nginx-svc --port 80 -n rs67
k get ep -n rs67 > /opt/INC002/endpoints.txt

With aliases

kn rs67         # changing context to use rs67 namespace
kc              # shows the current context and the namespace details

k create deploy nginx-frontend --image nginx
k expose deploy nginx-frontend --name nginx-svc --port 80
k get ep > /opt/INC002/endpoints.txt

kn default      # I feel it is a good practice to switch back to default namespace after every question

These two additions were enough for me to edit/create YAMLs using VI

sudo vi /etc/vim/vimrc
set number
set paste

During the exam, you can keep only one other browser tab open to refer to official documentation. I have uploaded the bookmarks which I have used for 1.19version. These bookmarks can be used for both CKA/CKAD.

• Walid Shaari
• ibrahim Jelliti
• Kim Wuestkamp
• Kubernetes CKS 2020 Complete Course + Simulator